… opposes the proposed Milton Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago (background here), but if she were advising the faculty opponents of the thing, she’d suggest they go about things differently.
They seem unable so far to craft a good message, and to stay on message.
Instead, they do dumb things, like say they want a big fat institute for their field ( “Theology professor William Schweiker said that he has no problem with the economics department creating a research institute honoring Friedman, but that such large-scale investment by the university could be better utilized by spreading it among a range of disciplines. ‘It’s clear that not only economic forces are important in our time, but also cultural forces,’ he said. ‘The religions, for example, are exerting massive forces of good and ill around the world. We need to study them.’”), or they complain that they don’t like its reigning ideas, forgetting that universities are about free inquiry (The Institute, protests another professor, will represent a “pure, free-market conservative or neoliberal position, where the market is the solution to everything.”).
The faculty’s strongest card is Friedman’s association with authoritarian regimes. They should play that one.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:51AM
[...] Milton Friedman. 28 08 2008 UD is right about the Milton Friedman Institute controversy at the University of Chicago. If you’re [...]